


Who We Are Is Not Who We Were

by Aiepathy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alcohol references, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Camp Jaha, Headcanon, Hope, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Moonshine, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, drug references, minty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 10:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5583169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aiepathy/pseuds/Aiepathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monty is lost when the delinquents return to Camp Jaha from the Mountain. All of his friends are trying to keep themselves together while he finds himself falling apart. That all begins to change when Nathan Miller gets an idea and begins to remind Monty not just of the Dropship, but of the ark and who they both really are.</p><p>A series of connected ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who We Are Is Not Who We Were

Everything was supposed to fall into place after dealing with the grounders and the arkers and even the Mountain Men. But instead everything is falling apart, crumbling into tiny bits underneath my feet.

Jasper hasn’t spoken to me since the mountain. Octavia and Lincoln are traveling alone away from camp. Clarke is gone. No one really knows where she is, but a part of me knows that she’s either chasing Lexa or running from Bellamy, or maybe both.

Bellamy. Bellamy is mourning for the loss of the only two people who kept him together while still trying to grasp at control. And Nathan is Camp Jaha’s brightest cadet recruit.

Raven and Wick have tried to incorporate me and I’ve been helping them, but nothing is the same as when we used to all work together. Raven is figuring out what life without Finn and one of her legs is. Wick is desperately trying to convince her that he is the answer. And I’m just making sure the coding is all right.

The fact is, we aren’t in any immediate danger for the first time since I’ve stepped foot onto this planet. And that is terrifying.

I find myself sitting beside the little hole in the gate that the remaining members of the hundred like to use to sneak in and out of Camp Jaha. I find myself sitting here a lot. The freedom of the dropship did something to us. But the Mountain did more. We aren’t content inside the walls of Camp Jaha and everyone is afraid if we’re let out, we’ll crack. So we’ve done what grounders do. We found a way to get the results we want and to protect our people before anyone else’s.

It’s getting chilly as winter approaches and I find myself tugging the Mount Weather issued coat closer to my body. Despite the horror of knowing the people who gave it to you are dead, something is still comforting about wearing the clothes from the Mountain. It feels civilised without being too civilised. The blood on my hands, the dead men and women who supplied us these clothes keep them that way, keep them from feeling too civilized for the ground.

I’m deep within my thoughts, images of the Mountain plaguing my conscious mind when I hear a scraping noise from the other side of the fence. I know it’s probably just one of the others sneaking back in, but I’ve been on the ground too long to risk it. I’ve seen too many of my friends die because they risked it.

So I do the instinctive thing and find myself in a crouch behind the crates which we use to conceal the hole. The knife I religiously keep in my pocket is in my hand and I have a clear view of the hole. My eyes scan the trees. I don’t see anything but if it’s grounders my lack of visual detection means nothing. I see a dark body begin to crawl through the hole and begin to move slowly around the boxes when I look closer and realize it’s definitely Nathan. I feel like an idiot and I’m almost embarrassed as he stands up, dusts himself off and begins to approach the crates to move them back.

As he moves the first one I know what he sees. Me shoving my knife back into my pocket and trying not to look like my heart had just been racing a mile a minute. He continues to move the crates as though seeing me crouched behind them is an everyday experience. I take this time to compose myself and by the time Nathan is taking a seat on the crates which are now in front of the hole I am cautiously joining him.

As I sit down I notice that for the first time since we returned he isn’t in the ark-issued guard uniform. He isn’t wearing the clothes from the mountain or even the clothes he came down in. Instead the Nathan who is sitting beside me looks like the Nathan who I spent hours with on the ark gazing at the earth with, the Nathan who always found a way to get what we needed when we needed it, the Nathan who went to the Skybox because of that talent. He’s clean-shaven and his beanie is perched on top of his head. His dad had to have brought down some of Nathan’s stuff in the hopes of seeing his son once again. He is wearing a pale blue shirt and black pants, the small shell necklace his father had told him was an heirloom from the ground and the little piece of metal through his right ear our friend Nita had pierced at a party back on the ark.

I’m pretty shaken by it if I’m being honest. Seeing the Nathan I knew on the ark sitting beside me on the ground is one of the most surreal things that I’ve experienced, and I watched my best friend get shot with a spear on a planet we thought was abandoned.

“Hey.” He breaks our silence. “I figured you’d be over here so I went out and got you something.”

“What?” I ask. These are the first words Nathan and I have spoken since the Mountain, but it’s so like him to forgo formalities. Instead of answering he extends his hand and waits for me to open mine, palm to the sky. Once I comply a cloth bag drops into my hand, no bigger than my palm secured by drawstrings. I slowly open it glancing over to Nathan whose eyes are trained on the ground. They are unmoving as I empty the contents into my palm. “Mushrooms?” I ask.

“I thought you might want to get back into the moonshine business,” Nathan says, a grin plastered on his face. “Everybody’s so busy. I think we could all use a little reminder of the happier days at the dropship.”

“But, mushrooms?”

“I didn’t know what you used to make moonshine, but I remember you always asking for these back at the dropship,” Nathan trails off, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You know how much work this is gonna be?” I ask, confirming that I am willing to try this. Whether it’s a waste of our time or not Nathan’s attempt to offer me the one thing we’ve always offered each other, a good time, is reassuring. On the ark it was the grow room and on the ground it was the moonshine.

“You broke into almost every room in the Mountain. And I am a pretty good thief.”

When I look at Miller I’m happy enough to see the mischievous twinkle is back in his eyes that I decide pursuing this might just be enough to bring the twinkle back to not only his eyes, but maybe the rest of our friends as well.

“So, what’s the plan?” Miller asks after I put the tiny mushrooms back into their pouch.

Nathan is the most promising recruit to the arkers, but in reality he is still Nathan Miller, the one friend I still have.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first Minty ficlet I've completed, so I would love to know how you feel about the characterization.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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